The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.
Bio: Ian Buruma is a Dutch writer and historian who lives and works in the United States. Much of his work focuses on the culture of Asia, particularly that of China and 20th-century Japan. He has been the Paul W.